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On Seeing A Beautiful Boy At Play.
Down the green slope he bounded. Raven curlsFrom his white shoulders by the winds were swept,And the clear color of his sunny cheekWas bright with motion. Through his open lipsShone visibly a delicate line of pearl,Like a white vein within a rosy shell,And his dark eye's clear brilliance, as it layBeneath his lashes, like a drop of dewHid in the moss, stole out as covertlyAs starlight from the edging of a cloud.I never saw a boy so beautiful.His step was like the stooping of a bird,And his limbs melted into grace like thingsShaped by the wind of summer. He was likeA painter's fine conception - such an oneAs he would have of Ganymede, and weepUpon his pallet that he could not winThe vision to his easel. Who could paintThe young and s...
Nathaniel Parker Willis
The Beginning
Some day I shall rise and leave my friendsAnd seek you again through the world's far ends,You whom I found so fair(Touch of your hands and smell of your hair!),My only god in the days that were.My eager feet shall find you again,Though the sullen years and the mark of painHave changed you wholly; for I shall know(How could I forget having loved you so?),In the sad half-light of evening,The face that was all my sunrising.So then at the ends of the earth I'll standAnd hold you fiercely by either hand,And seeing your age and ashen hairI'll curse the thing that once you were,Because it is changed and pale and old(Lips that were scarlet, hair that was gold!),And I loved you before you were old and wise,When the flame of youth was strong ...
Rupert Brooke
The Oblation
Ask nothing more of me, sweet;All I can give you I give.Heart of my heart, were it more,More would be laid at your feet:Love that should help you to live,Song that should spur you to soar.All things were nothing to giveOnce to have sense of you more,Touch you and taste of you sweet,Think you and breathe you and live,Swept of your wings as they soar,Trodden by chance of your feet.I that have love and no moreGive you but love of you, sweet:He that hath more, let him give;He that hath wings, let him soar;Mine is the heart at your feetHere, that must love you to live.
Algernon Charles Swinburne
To My Mother
No foreign tribute from a stranger-hand,Mother, I bring thee, whom not Heaven's songsWould as an alien reach.... Ah, but how farFrom Heaven's least heavenly is the changing noteAnd changing fancy of these fitful cries!Mother, forgive them, as the best of meHas ever pleaded only for thy pardon,Not for thy praise.Mother, there is a loveMen give to wives and children, lovers, friends;There is a love which some men give to God.Ah! between this, I think, and that last love,Last and too-late-discovered love of God,There shines--and nearer to the love of God--The love a man gives only to his mother,Whose travail of dear thought has never endUntil the End. Oh that my mouth had wordsComfortable as thy kisses to the boyWho loved while he forg...
John Frederick Freeman
Answer To Cloe Jealous. The Author Sick
Yes, fairest Proof of Beauty's Pow'r,Dear Idol of My panting Heart,Nature points This my fatal Hour:And I have liv'd; and We must part.While now I take my last Adieu,Heave Thou no Sigh, nor shed a Tear;Lest yet my half-clos'd Eye may viewOn Earth an Object worth it's Care.From Jealousy's tormenting StrifeFor ever be Thy Bosom free'd:That nothing may disturb Thy Life,Content I hasten to the Dead.Yet when some better-fated YouthShall with his am'rous Parly move Thee;Reflect One Moment on His Truth,Who dying Thus, persists to love Thee.
Matthew Prior
To Julia. On Her Birthday.
When Time was entwining the garland of years, Which to crown my beloved was given,Though some of the leaves might be sullied with tears, Yet the flowers were all gathered in heaven.And long may this garland be sweet to the eye, May its verdure forever be new;Young Love shall enrich it with many a sigh, And Sympathy nurse it with dew.
Thomas Moore
Seeta And Rama - A Tale Of The Indian Famine.
It was by far the loveliest scene in Ind: - A deep sunk lonely vale, 'tween verdant hills That, in eternal friendship, seemed to hold Communion with the changing skies above; Dark shady groves the haunts of shepherd boys And wearied peasants in the midday noon; A lake that shone in lustre clear and bright Like a pure Indian diamond set amidst Green emeralds, where every morn, with songs Of parted lovers that tempted blooming maids With pitchers on their heads to stay and hear Those songs, the busy villagers of the vale Their green fields watered that gave them sure hopes Of future plenty and of future joys. Oh, how uncertain man's sure hopes and joys! In this enchanted hollow that was scooped - ...
T. Ramakrishna
Margery.
"Truth lights our minds as sunrise lights the world.The heart that shuts out truth, excludes the lightThat wakes the love of beauty in the soul;And being foe to these, despises God,The sole Dispenser of the gracious blissThat brings us nearer the celestial gate.They who might feed on rose-leaves of the True,And grow in loveliness of heart and soul,Catch at Deception's airy gossamers,As children clutch at stars. To some, the worldIs a bleak desert, parched with blinding sand,With here and there a mirage, fair to view,But insubstantial as the visions bornOf Folly and Despair. Could we but knowHow nigh we are to the true light of heaven;In what a world of love we live and breathe;On what a tide of truth our souls are borne!Yet we're bu...
Charles Sangster
Within.
Could my heart hold another one?I cannot tell.Sometimes it seems an ample dome,Sometimes a cell,Sometimes a temple filled with saints,Serene and fair,Whose eyes are pure from mortal taintsAll lilies are.Sometimes a narrow shrine, in whichOne precious fareSmiles ever from its guarded niche,With deathless grace.Sometimes a nest, where weary things,And weal; and shy,Are brooded under mother wingsTill they can fly.And then a palace, with wide roomsAdorned and dressed,Where eager slaves pour sweet perfumesFor each new guest.Whiche'er it be, I know alwaysWithin that door--Whose latch it is not mine to raise--Blows evermore,With breath of balm upon its wing,A sof...
Susan Coolidge
Lines
1.Unfelt unheard, unseen,I've left my little queen,Her languid arms in silver slumber lying:Ah! through their nestling touch,Who, who could tell how muchThere is for madness, cruel, or complying?2.Those faery lids how sleek!Those lips how moist! they speak,In ripest quiet, shadows of sweet sounds:Into my fancy's earMelting a burden dear,How "Love doth know no fullness, nor no bounds."3.True, tender monitors!I bend unto your laws:This sweetest day for dalliance was born!So, without more ado,I'll feel my heaven anew,For all the blushing of the hasty morn.
John Keats
Aphrodite
Not unremembering we pass our exile from the starry ways:One timeless hour in time we caught from the long night of endless days.With solemn gaiety the stars danced far withdrawn on elfin heights:The lilac breathed amid the shade of green and blue and citron lights.But yet the close enfolding night seemed on the phantom verge of things,For our adoring hearts had turned within from all their wanderings:For beauty called to beauty and there thronged at the enchanter's willThe vanished hours of love that burn within the Ever-living still.And sweet eternal faces put the shadows of the earth to rout,And faint and fragile as a moth your white hand fluttered and went out.Oh, who am I who tower beside this goddess of the twilight air?The burning doves fly from my heart and melt wit...
George William Russell
From The Same II
No mortal object did these eyes beholdWhen first they met the placid light of thine,And my Soul felt her destiny divine,And hope of endless peace in me grew bold:Heaven-born, the Soul a heaven-ward course must hold;Beyond the visible world she soars to seek(For what delights the sense is false and weak)Ideal Form, the universal mould.The wise man, I affirm, can find no restIn that which perishes: nor will he lendHis heart to aught which doth on time depend.'Tis sense, unbridled will, and not true love,That kills the soul: love betters what is best,Even here below, but more in heaven above.
William Wordsworth
Lake Leman
It is the sacred hour: above the farLow emerald hills that northward fold,Calmly, upon the blue the evening starFloats, wreathed in dusky gold.The winds have sung all day; but now they lieFaint, sleeping; and the evening sounds awake.The slow bell tolls across the water: IAm haunted by the spirit of the lake.It seems as though the sounding of the bellIntoned the low song of the water-soul,And at some moments I can hardly tellThe long-resounding echo from the toll.O thou mysterious lake, thy spellHolds all who round thy fruitful margin dwell.Oft have I seen home-going peasants' eyesLit with the peace that emanates from thee.Those who among thy waters plunge, ariseFilled with new wisdom and serenity.Thy veins are in the mountains. I h...
Harold Monro
Valentines From A Conchologist
Were I a murm'ring ocean shell Pressed close against your ear,My constant whisperings would tell A story sweet to hear.I'd make the message from the sea Love's tidings on the shore,And I would woo with words so true That you could ask no more.So if some silvern nautilus Lay close beside your cheek,And you should hear a language dear Unto the heart I seek,You'll know within the simple shell That murmurs o'er and o'erI send to you a love more true Than e'er was breathed before.
Arthur Macy
Invitation To The Voyage
My sister, my childImagine how sweetTo live there as lovers do!To kiss as we chooseTo love and to dieIn that land resembling you!The misty sunsOf shifting skiesTo my spirit are as dearAs the evasionsOf your eyesThat shine behind their tears.There, all is order and leisure,Luxury, beauty, and pleasure.The tables would glowWith the lustre of yearsTo ornament our room.The rarest of bloomsWould mingle their scentsWith amber's vague perfume.The ceilings, richThe mirrors, deepThe splendour of the EastAll whisper thereTo the silent soulHer sweet familiar speech.There, all is order and leisure,Luxury, beauty, and pleasure.And these canalsBear ships at ...
Charles Baudelaire
At A Birthday Festival - To J. R. Lowell
We will not speak of years to-night, -For what have years to bringBut larger floods of love and light,And sweeter songs to sing?We will not drown in wordy praiseThe kindly thoughts that rise;If Friendship own one tender phrase,He reads it in our eyes.We need not waste our school-boy artTo gild this notch of Time; -Forgive me if my wayward heartHas throbbed in artless rhyme.Enough for him the silent graspThat knits us hand in hand,And he the bracelet's radiant claspThat locks our circling band.Strength to his hours of manly toil!Peace to his starlit dreams!Who loves alike the furrowed soil,The music-haunted streams!Sweet smiles to keep forever brightThe sunshine on his lips,And fa...
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Auf Wiedersehen. - In Memory Of J.T.F.
Until we meet again! That is the meaningOf the familiar words, that men repeat At parting in the street.Ah yes, till then! but when death interveningRends us asunder, with what ceaseless pain We wait for the Again!The friends who leave us do not feel the sorrowOf parting, as we feel it, who must stay Lamenting day by day,And knowing, when we wake upon the morrow,We shall not find in its accustomed place The one beloved face.It were a double grief, if the departed,Being released from earth, should still retain A sense of earthly pain;It were a double grief, if the true-hearted,Who loved us here, should on the farther shore Remember us no more.Believing, in the midst of our afflictions,That...
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Sweet Peas.
By helpful fingers taught to twine Around its trellis, grewA delicate and dainty vine;The bursting bud, its blossom sign, Inlaid with honeyed-dew.Developing by every art To floriculture known,From tares exempt, and kept apart,Careful, as if in some fond heart Its legume germs were sown.So thriving, not for me alone Its beauty and perfume -Ah, no, to rich perfection grownBy flower mission loved and known In many a darkened room.And once in strange and solemn place, Mid weeping uncontrolled,Upon the crushed and snowy laceI saw them scattered 'round a face All pallid, still, and cold.Oh, some may choose, as gaudy shows, Those saucy sprigs of prideThe peony, the ...
Hattie Howard